Suspect in bus killing stays silent in court
As the man accused of a gruesome stabbing aboard a Greyhound bus appeared in court Friday, friends described the slain passenger as a bubbly and well-loved young Winnipegger.

Police have not confirmed the identity of the man stabbed to death aboard a bus late Wednesday and then, according to witness accounts, beheaded. But court documents name him as Timothy McLean, and friends have confirmed it was Tim McLean Jr., 22, of Winnipeg.

Li appeared for a hearing Friday at the Manitoba provincial court in Portage la Prairie around 10 a.m. CT without a lawyer and refused to speak to anyone.

He shuffled into the courthouse under the weight of heavy leg shackles, with his eyes focused on the floor. His right hand was heavily bandaged and there was visible bruising on his face.

The judge asked him twice whether he had a lawyer, but the accused just stared at the ground. When the judge asked whether Li was exercising his right to remain silent, he nodded his head.

The Crown asked for a psychiatric assessment, but the judge said the accused must see legal aid about getting a lawyer before proceeding further. Li was remanded into custody until his next appearance on Tuesday.

"It's early and I think the judge just wants to respect his rights to … speak to counsel, and he's giving him that opportunity," Crown prosecutor Larry Hodgson said outside court. "I don't think it will be very long that they'll allow him to do that."

Hodgson said if Li doesn't get his own lawyer, the court could appoint one or the case could proceed anyway.

Second-degree murder, under the Criminal Code, is generally unpremeditated murder. First-degree murder refers to a killing that is planned and deliberate, but also when death is caused by sexual assault, kidnapping, forcible confinement or hijacking an airplane.

Li has no previous criminal record, RCMP said.

McLean 'missed dearly'
In an e-mail to CBC News, friend Jossie Kehler wrote that McLean was loved by everyone, had a bubbly personality and was a ladies' man.

"He has a lot of friends and they all are very upset he's gone, and they would like to say they miss him and he will always be in their hearts," she wrote.

"People say no one's perfect, but Tim, he was," she wrote. "He did nothing bad to anyone."

Tim McLean Jr. was described by friends as a bubbly person loved by everyone. Thousands of Facebook users flocked Friday to a tribute group titled 'RIP Tim McLean' set up overnight to send their condolences to family and friends as well as express their shock at the grisly story that made international headlines.

"You are loved and you will be missed dearly!" the site description read.

Friends say McLean had taken a job with the Red River Exhibition and then went to work in Edmonton, but had decided to return home.

On McLean's MySpace page, under the name JoKAwiLd, he describes himself as five-foot-five, weighing about 125 pounds.

Witnesses intially described the attacker as a hulking man over six feet tall who appeared to weigh more than 200 pounds — but in court on Friday, Li appeared to be about five-foot-eight or -nine, with a stocky build.

Father trying to reach wife
McLean's father, Tim McLean Sr., told CBC News on Thursday night that he was in the process of trying to get confirmation from the police that his son was, in fact, the victim.

He said he was also trying to reach his wife, who is on an Alaskan cruise until next week.

Police officers spent Thursday examining the Greyhound bus where the attack took place. (CBC)The father said his son had sent him a text message around 7:30 p.m. as the bus was leaving Brandon, the last leg of its journey, to ask whether he could come home for the night.

McLean Sr. told his son that of course he could come home. That was the last contact they had.

The RCMP would not confirm reports the victim was beheaded, saying only that a stabbing took place around 8:30 p.m. CT on an eastbound Greyhound bus on the Trans-Canada Highway about 20 kilometres west of Portage la Prairie.

An autopsy was scheduled for Friday at the Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre, and police were waiting for the results before deciding, with input from the family, whether to make the victim's name public.

"The RCMP are mindful of the range of emotions being experienced by the family of the deceased over the loss of their loved one in such a horrific incident. Our thoughts are with them," the RCMP said in a statement.

Victim sleeping when attack began
Witnesses said the victim got on the bus in Edmonton, while his attacker came aboard in Brandon and sat away from the victim toward the front of the bus, they said. After a short cigarette break, however, the attacker moved his belongings and chose a seat beside the young man.

Garnet Caton, who was sitting in the seat in front of the victim, said the young man was sleeping with his headphones on when he was attacked.

Caton said he heard a "blood-curdling scream" and turned around to see the attacker holding a large hunting knife and repeatedly stabbing the victim.

"He must have stabbed him 50 times or 60 times," said Caton, who jumped out of his seat when he realized what was happening and began ushering passengers to the front of the bus.

Caton, the driver and a trucker who had stopped at the scene later boarded the vehicle to see whether the victim was still alive. At that point, Caton said, the suspect was beheading the victim.

The attacker ran at them, Caton said, and they ran out of the bus, holding the door shut as he tried to slash at the trio. When the attacker tried to drive the bus away, the driver disabled the vehicle, Caton said.

RCMP crisis negotiators communicated with the suspect for several hours while he was on the bus. Around 1:30 a.m., he attempted to jump from a bus window and was subdued and arrested, RCMP said.

Half the bus was probably asleep,it was dark, it happened in the back of the bus. The victim was asleep. There isn't much room in a bus and the bus had many senior and children passengers. It happened in the back where hardly anyone was sitting. Best move was what they did, stop the bus, get everyone off safely. The guy sitting directly in front of the attack had no idea what has happening until after multiple stabbings had already occurred, he thought it was a fist-fight until he saw the "Rambo" knife, and the blood while the guy was casually stabbing away at the victim His first reaction was to get the driver to stop the bus and evacuate since no one knew what was going on in the back. The suspect did not act suspicious or show any signs of aggressiveness up to the point of the attack. There was nothing anyone could have done to stop that maniac. They did ensure that he was unable to leave the bus to threaten anyone else. I think they did as good a job as possible under the circumstances. All luggage is put under the bus which can only be access from the outside.

Recently here in Canada, a 17yr old thief was brandishing a knife, the cops tasered him and he died. So if the police are afraid to physically attack a person in daylight with a small knife who never stabbed anyone, I would hardly expect an individual in the confines of a dark bus to confront a wacko who was brutally stabbing another passenger with a big knife.

What I find unusual is that when this psycho tried to leave the bus through a broken window, the cops subdued him by force instead of tasering his ass. To me, this was the perfect situation to use tasers. I do not understand how law enforcement uses it rules of engagement regarding tasers. This guy had just committed a horrific murder, was armed, could have had other weapons and they tackled him? Meanwhile, other people unarmed or with a pocketknife and a poor attitude get tasered, it's messed up.

It's been a tough week on Canadian youth, last week a 15 yr old male died when a truck load of hot asphalt was dumped on him. He was working with the paving company even though he was underage. His funeral was today. The fire chief said that when they arrived, all that they saw was the top of his hair.

I do not understand how law enforcement uses it rules of engagement regarding tasers. This guy had just committed a horrific murder, was armed, could have had other weapons and they tackled him? Meanwhile, other people unarmed or with a pocketknife and a poor attitude get tasered, it's messed up.

The police are only authorized to use force, not at the appearance of conflict, but at the appearance of force against them. The force they use to subdue may only be proportional to that used against them: ie, if someone's being belligerent and yelling at them, the police can't shoot him; likewise, if someone's wielding a knife and won't put it down (potentially deadly) they are generally given the okay to use non-lethal weapons (ie tasers) to subdue but not guns. The police in Canada, matter of fact, can't even draw their firearms unless guns are suspected to be present and they can't fire them without being first fired upon (barring something like a hostage situation).

Sure, the dude murdered someone in an incredibly brutal way, but it's the court's job and not the police's to judge his guilt -- since the guy (I'm forced to assume) didn't place any potential threat on police life, the best they could do was detain him by martial means.

There's been a lot of discussion about upping bus security as a consequence, and that's probably not a bad thing, but there's only been (to my knowledge) 6 assaults on greyhounds in Canada in the last 10 years (including this one) and so I'm not sure all the expenses would be justified. I'm not saying, of course, that we shouldn't try to protect life, but more that if they increase costs of business and of ridership, without going so far as searching everyone airport style, they're only going to increase safety marginally and anyone who intends to fuck someone up on a bus is still going to be able to do it. It'll be more expensive, and not any more safe. If they go so far as to do it airport style, then it'll be cheaper and more convenient to take the train -- trains also being less secured than airlines. I'm not sure the system isn't fine as it is, else it start to become prohibitive to travel even by the cheapest means.

I'm not suggesting that the police should have shot the guy. I am just wondering why they thought it was safer to physically grab this guy who had a big f'n knife, could have had more weapons (they didn't know), obviously was a threat to everyone in the area, but determined it was safe enough to approach him as he left the bus to stop him. Meanwhile, we have had situations not even close to this where "can I taser him" or "let's taser him,cause we have other things to do" is the automatic response. But supposedly, the taser was deemed to be a weapon used in place of the situations where a gun could be warranted. Thus my query as to what guidelines cops use cause it appears that it is up to the individual cop regardless of what we are told by the talking heads. Although, witnesses said he was calm so maybe that is the factor which determines whether to zap or not. So if he was yelling and waving his arms around, he would have gotten the juice. A calm demeanor, aww, he is just a pushover, get him boys.

I think upping bus security is totally unfeasible to implement on the Greyhound bus system unless it is at the entrance of the bus itself. There are hundreds of isolated pickup locations all over the country which cannot possibly setup a security system to screen passengers.

This scared the shit out of me. I ride those buses and get paranoid enough when I get stuck sitting next to some weirdo at night. How unimaginably horrible for him and now his family, a well as all those who saw.

I'm not suggesting that the police should have shot the guy. I am just wondering why they thought it was safer to physically grab this guy who had a big f'n knife, could have had more weapons (they didn't know), obviously was a threat to everyone in the area, but determined it was safe enough to approach him as he left the bus to stop him. Meanwhile, we have had situations not even close to this where "can I taser him" or "let's taser him,cause we have other things to do" is the automatic response. But supposedly, the taser was deemed to be a weapon used in place of the situations where a gun could be warranted. Thus my query as to what guidelines cops use cause it appears that it is up to the individual cop regardless of what we are told by the talking heads. Although, witnesses said he was calm so maybe that is the factor which determines whether to zap or not. So if he was yelling and waving his arms around, he would have gotten the juice. A calm demeanor, aww, he is just a pushover, get him boys.

Nah, I know you weren't suggesting that. I just wanted to be clear on where they try to draw the lines. There's surely grey area between 'guy with a knife, could be a threat but is compliant' and 'guy with a knife, could be a threat and is non-compliant', there aren't really any hard and fast rules on the matter that I know of, except to say the officer should proceed with caution because if he oversteps his bounds he could end up facing criminal charges. It is up to the officer, in the end -- he/she has to live with the consequences of this decision more intimately than everyone else.

We hear about a few bad incidents every year where tasers are used, sometimes blatantly misused and sometimes justifiably but with bad consequences, however we shouldn't assume that they're only used in these exceptional instances (all of them being negative). Not all departments in Canada use tasers anyway, as I understand it, I think that's left to the discretion of the department -- could be this particular jurisdiction doesn't carry them? That'd be a quick end to the subject in this case. If you don't have them, you can't use them.

This wasn't a kid and who knows what the guy's malfunction is, but I completely agree with you that people who go out of their way to look at horrible things which they should consider themselves lucky to never experience first hand do need to have their head checked.

What a shocking crime.. his poor family, it's difficult to imagine what they must be going through. I wish that I could call it an unbelievably shocking crime, but when it comes to human nature it seems that all bets are off.

I don't think that overhauling the bus security system would address this sort of problem, although it may give their customers and their loved ones some peace of mind during those times when they're sitting on a bus. Let's face it, a whacko like this loose on the streets could decide to attack anywhere, even a bus stop - you can't defend against that, and who wants to live in a police state? The root cause is in the guy's head - if you can't fix it there, you have to live with the possibility that he'll snap at some point, and in unpredictable circumstances.

As for what the other passengers could have done, I also agree that in reality it's probably not much. Yep they were probably snoozing during that long ride, and bleary-eyed and confused as hell when they woke up to the screams. When something that horrific happens out of nowhere, it's hard to imagine what would be going through most people's heads. They might be frozen wondering if it's really actually happening, because it's just so crazy. I like to think that wouldn't be me, but who knows?

When something like this happens, it does make you wonder why though doesn't it? You want to make some sense of it.. to know what's going through the attacker's mind, what's he been through lately? To wonder if somehow maybe he had some bizarre convoluted reason for doing what he did, and specifically to the other guy. Was there some connection or provocation there? Even if the punishment didn't nearly fit the crime. Anything at all? The thought of a completely random butchering doesn't sit well...

Reminds me somehow of the Sheriff's chilling opening monologue in No Country for Old Men: "Told me that he’d been planning to kill somebody for about as long as he could remember. Said that if they turned him out he’d do it again. Said he knew he was going to hell. Be there in about fifteen minutes. I don’t know what to make of that. I surely don’t. The crime you see now, it’s hard to even take its measure."